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‘Despicable Me’ Tops ‘Eclipse’ at Weekend Box Office

Well I wasn’t entirely wrong when I made my weekend box office predictions last Friday, but I certainly did not predict that Despicable Me would go on a tear like it did! The animated film, starring funnyman Steve Carell, generated a whopping $60.1 million over the weekend – far surpassing Twilight Eclipse in its second weekend ($33.4M).

The other opening film was Predators, which did just about what I expected: $25.3M. That’s actually a pretty solid opening for a film budgeted at $40M. Apparently audiences didn’t mind seeing Adrien Brody in a badass action role. Hit the jump to see the top 10.

Just behind Predators was Toy Story 3. Now in its fourth week, the smash hit from Pixar brought in another $22 million, bringing its domestic total to a stunning $340M. It is now the highest grossing Pixar flick ever, just inching past Finding Nemo. The third film in the franchise has really outdone the first two though. Toy Story brought in $191M back in 1995 and Toy Story 2 coughed up $245M in ’99. Maybe if they wait even longer for a fourth film, it will hit the $500M mark! (kidding)

M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender plummeted from its opening weekend. The fantasy film generated $17.1M, down 57.5% from it’s opening. Nevertheless, it looks like the poorly received film will make back it’s reported $150M budget. Despite terrible reviews, the movie has earned just over $100M domestically. It’s international numbers are lagging, but it doesn’t open in many markets until August.

Rounding out the top ten are Grown Ups ($16.4M), Knight & Day ($7.85M), The Karate Kid ($5.7M), The A Team ($1.8M) and Cyrus ($1.37M). Overall, weekend numbers were up 6.8% from last year.

This week The Sorcerer’s Apprentice opens on Wednesday and Inception opens on Friday.